Beyond Attoseconds

Abstract

We briefly review the pilot ideas on the generation of EM-pulses much shorter than already available sub-femtosecond pulses, and outline inroads and venues into the physics of pulses mush shorter than an attosecond (10^-18 s), in particular the so called zeptosecond (10^-21 s) and yoctosecond (10^-24 s) pulses that may allow one to operate on QED and nuclear as well as quark-gluon time plasma scales. We also very briefly outline the entire time-scale available in the existing universe, down to the ultimately short the so called Planck time ~ 10^-43 s, which is the time-scale of Big Bang, and the most significant time-scale-posts on the road to it.

10 pages; to appear in "Lasers in Engineering", Special Issue: Attodynamics and Analysis with Ultra-short Laser Pulses", 2012